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GET LOST IN DREW PRICE'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE

I don't want to fuck with your heads too much, but that sharply dressed woman above is not actually a woman at all, but a man named Drew Price. Drew spends a lot of time in his bedroom recording skewed ultra-melodic psychedelic pop music, releasing most of it under the moniker

Drew Price's Bermuda Triangle

, (though he also records with other people under the name

Spells

). After he sent over almost three albums worth of pretty flawless material to me a few weeks ago, I felt obliged to catch up with with Drew to see what makes him tick and how on earth he's got time to record all this shit. Plus we posted three tracks to listen to and download amongst the words.

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VICE: Who are you? DREW:

My name is Drew Price. I'm 20 years old, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, I'm going to college here right now and I don't know what I'm doing in college. I take a lot of sociology classes… Ha.

That explains how you have had time to record the two-and-a-half albums you sent me.

I've been writing pop songs since about 9th grade. I started recording really shitty stuff for fun when I was about sixteen. I had a lot of random fun recordings but they were all on Dell computers and they crashed every time. I got a MacBook about a year ago and everything out there except for two or three songs has been made on Garageband since then.

DREW PRICE'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE - "I NEVER HAVE THOSE (ELECTRIC CRASH)"

[audio:http://viceland-assets-cdn.vice.com/music/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/i-never-have-those-electric-crash.mp3]

How do you get those weird sounds?

I get those crazy sounds in just about every way possible. I know Garageband very well, I use all types of Casio keyboards, processors, midi controllers, samplers, etc. I'm really into beats and sampling. I like to cut and paste like a motherfucker, I have a fetish for recycled sounds. Most sounds I recycle are other things I've recorded in the past, it's a cesspool of snippets, but it's also just a lot of acoustic guitar and old Casiotones.

Why the Bermuda Triangle?

I named it "drew price's bermuda triangle" because its just a channel in my brain. sometimes I feel like I'm not writing the songs I make but I'm channeling them from somewhere else. someone else, because I feel like the song already has a set destiny. I also forget when I've recorded things.. I forget HOW I recorded something…songs just happen. As soon as I started making songs alone they just kept coming…. Things get lost in drew price's bermuda triangle. I think we all have a Bermuda Triangle. It's our third eye.

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So your Bermuda triangle is your subconscious sending songs straight out of your head?

Yes it could be, or I could just be some dead persons vessel.

I wonder who?

I dont care. I dont think it would matter who they were but more so what they were playing. So I guess im slightly suspicious of a lot of dead pop musicians. Someone died….something died…and its back…vibrating again…

DREW PRICE'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE - "BORGIA BORGIA ISLAND"

[audio:http://viceland-assets-cdn.vice.com/music/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/borgia-borgia-island.mp3]

Name five records and things that inspire your music.

That's a hard question because at this point in my life I can't handle being an album guy. When I was younger I was way into the concept of albums, but these days I'm moving so fast through the web, albums, artists, and songs. I find myself listening to songs just for the good melody. I'm really a melody guy, I'm kind of convinced that melodies are not subjective. But as far as albums go, I'd have to say:

The Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? Lou Reed - Transformer

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

Deerhoof - Runners Four

All of those albums brought me bliss, but I still like to say I don't have favorite artists. Also, old fashioned cartoons, my band-mate Devon Mcfarland's art has evolved with my music throughout the past 8 years or so. and just other psychedelic multimedia type artists…. I'd like to say ben jones' resonates in my essence for some reason… I feel like im writing music for Paperrad sometimes, but thats just me. you know some people like to picture lightning bolt for paperrad which i totally understand but this is how I took in their art.

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EXCERPT FROM DEVON MCFARLAND ILLUSTRATED COMIC KING FACE

What's next?

As far as Spells goes, we've taken a bit of a break for shows but that's because our first full-length album is finally well into the works. Last summer, we recorded an album in an incredible studio here in Birmingham, but it is just now being mixed due to all sorts of bullshit. As for DPBT, I actually technically only have two albums "out". I've just been giving a lot of people tracks from my third album

HAIRWAVE DEMON

that I plan to self-release in about a month. At this moment I still have no idea how I'm going to keep self-releasing albums like this. I'm starting a collective of artists in birmingham/the world. musicians, visual artists, comedians, the works. We will have shows, we will release prints of comics and things like that, sort of a weird artist label website deal. (BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN I WOULDNT LOVE TO BE SIGNED BY A RECORD LABEL.)

DREW PRICE'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE - "MISSING FIGURE"

[audio:http://viceland-assets-cdn.vice.com/music/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/missing-figure.mp3] For updates on Drew's work

click here

JOEL WRIGHT